{ Islam from inside }

Danish cartoons and the sacred

Added February 02, 2006

The Danish cartoons which caricatured the Prophet in different ways
(including depicting him wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb), has
stirred up, not surprisingly, a hornet's nest of controversy.
It is yet another (in this case, somewhat silly) manifestation of an
ongoing process in which secular society, acting according to an
internal impulse, periodically lampoons various sacred icons. The
cartoons could have confined themselves to satirizing specific
politically motivated actions and still made their point, but instead
targeted the principal
foundations of the faith (the Prophet and the
Qur'an).

Reversing the values and meanings traditionally associated with
religious iconography, personages, and texts is a common mechanism to
deaden the seriousness and sacredness with which a religion's
metaphysical connections are viewed. This is done most simply by
subverting the language, images, and sacred contexts of religion
through mockery, ridicule, and stereotyping. Such a process is a
natural byproduct of a world in which religion has largely been
undercut, bypassed, or eliminated and its influence rendered innocuous
and irrelevant to the political, economic, and social order of society.
In such a world, religion belongs primarily to the private sphere and
even there anyone who immerses themselves too deeply in it is liable to
be considered as eccentric, peculiar, or suspect - and those who try to
organize their outward life according to religious dictates
are viewed as a danger to secular values.

This is the emerging and (currently) dominant Western reality - and any
dominant force naturally does what is necessary to secure and solidify
its position. In such a situation, the greatest annoyance and danger is
from those who have not sufficiently acquiesced to the new state of
affairs, and who insist on clinging to "outmoded" paradigms, to ways of
thinking that have nothing to do with the "real" (secular) world.
One way of counteracting them is to undercut the sacred foundational,
metaphysical symbols which are the outward form of an inward belief.
Even if this has little impact on the followers of the religion, it is
useful domestically in stereotyping and negatively objectifying that
which is considered a danger to secular society (thus undermining it's
influence).

Symbols, texts, iconic personages, and rituals are the architecture,
the geometry, the symbolic worldly aspect, the formalized
representation of metaphysical realities and of the human connection to
these realities. For Muslims, the Prophet is the human representation
of the writing of the Divine pen. He is the one on whose heart God
wrote His revelation and whose inner being is joined to God's Throne.
His inner reality (his form) is representative of an exalted
metaphysical architecture. Demolition of a sacred architecture is part
of the secular process of discarding the infrastructure of religion.
Once this demolition is underway, the refugees are then invited to take
shelter instead among the symbols of secular society.

The weakening of the metaphysical symbols is accomplished in part by
attempting to turn the traditional meanings connected with the symbols
upside down. The Satanic Verses was one case where an entire reverse
symbology was applied to the Prophet (in the person of Mahound) and his
wives. Whatever the literary merits and critical prowess of the
author may be, it is clear that a very debased inversion of meaning was
attached to traditionally sacred images, personalities, and
iconography.

These challenges to traditional religion are thrown out now and then,
and the proponents of the challenges believe this is a battle between
artistic freedom (or even freedom itself) and a reactionary belief
system. Traditional religious art is a sort of visual (or textual)
metaphysics, but the art that mocks religion cuts at the metaphysical
connections seeking to sever them with a stroke of the pen or brush. In
traditional art, the "what" of the art has a greater weight than the
"how" and even helps determine the "how". So the aim (the what) and the
intention and the spirit underlying any art is of great importance. In
the case of art that mocks the Prophet or the sacred texts of Islam,
the debased "spirit", aim, and intention that underlies the mockery is
clearly apparent to even the most obtuse. So, to the majority of
Muslims this is not simply art or visual commentary or even comic
caricature but is a provocation and a deliberate expression of
rancor
towards the foundations of their faith, masquerading, rather feebly,
under the guise of
artistic and literary license.

"And certainly apostles
before
you were mocked at, but that which they mocked at encompassed the
scoffers among them." (Qur'an 6:10)

This process of desacralization and debasment of religious iconography
is likely to strengthen and increase in frequency and is an unfortunate
and unsavory aspect of a much broader, far reaching, long term
philosophical shift. However, it's also an issue that was encountered
by Muslims in the Prophet's own time as is evidenced by several
Qur'anic verses on the issue - the recommended response was patience
and forebearance. If the Muslims remained true to their faith and
course they would, in time, replace or modify the existing societal
paradigms. If
not, the issue would be handled in the akhira (the hereafter).

Paradigm Shifts

The past few centuries have produced a series of mental shifts that
have resulted in a succession of changes in society's focus and outlook
(concerning man's approach and connection to religious sacredness) -
these led to the opening of many doors and resulted in the closing of
many others. The shifts relate to what it is that man turns toward in
comprehending and interfacing with the reality around him.

The question is - does what has been gained outweigh what has been
lost?

In general (starting in the west and spreading outward), vision
shifted from looking towards transcendental realms and interpreting the
material world in this light. It turned towards the material world and
an epistemology of rationalism and empiricism which brought many
material, industrial, and technological benefits even as it weakened
traditional religion. The authority inherent in revelation was
attenuated by this shift - a displacement of priority occurred - unseen
and esoteric mysteries (which are not amenable to strictly discursive
knowledge) slipped to the status of superstition or unverifiable
mythology.

Religion faded into a shadow existence - into romanticized but vague
beliefs freed from direct divine speech or a divine law - or into
ideological religion/religious ideologies, politicized and with
superficial and crude hermeneutics - or into humanism - or relativistic
religions - or invented/human-engineered religions - or new-age
fuzziness - or revisionist/literalist religion.

The expansion of some types of knowledge (material, instrumental,
measurement based, outward facing knowledge) led to the weakening of
and shift of focus away from other forms and modes of knowledge. Some
would say these shifts were major tectonic events that jostled humanity
from one mode of existence to another entirely different mode. The
power bases and the determinant forces that shape the reality we live
in harness technological, instrumental, external facing knowledge and
thereby further accelerate and strengthen them and correspondingly
marginalize other knowledges. Real material power, ability, and outward
control flows from instrumental knowledge, not from metaphysical
knowledge. Transcendent, sacred knowledge is therefore sidelined or
discarded as impractical, outmoded, and irrelevant.

Has man's mode of interfacing with reality truly undergone such
fundamental shifts? - If it is the case is there even a possibility of
regaining what has been lost (can one ever go back or is man's
transformation a one-way metamorphosis) - or perhaps there is a way
forward to a new mode that reconnects man with transcendent realities?